A few days ago i recived an email from a student at la “Transilvania” Universitaty Brasov,  and i was asked to prezent some info about how the iron is forged and what tools are used, in order for the student to write a project about this topic. What i can say is that a blacksmith has to be able to forge any element, iron picket under a hammer… and i know about some blacksmiths that don’t even use the file to finish the iron because that is removing material not moving it. Any tool that is removing material and is creating splinters is normally not involved into blacksmithing work and is not ”allowed”. That was the way the blacksmith craft was learned long time ago and this is how the old wrought iron gates and railings where created. This is the reason why they have such a grate value this days, because not many blacksmithing shops are working in the old way, with the hand hammer and anvil. Of course this days because of the costs the blacksmiths are ,,cheating” and they don’t necessary forge the iron. They have presses and power tools and most of the time the fastest method is used. There are only a hand full of clients that are really interested how the forged iron element was made, mass produce in china under special tools or hand formed, forged using an anvil and the hammer. Normally a client want’s his iron gate or iron railing finished as soon as possible and as cheap as possible, and that is pushing the blacksmith out of work and he is slowly transforming  in a welder that is buying cheap chinese elements and electricaly welds them together. If we are strictly interested into the blacksmithing work than we have limited tools : anvil, hammer, wire brush, tongues, a few chisels, and a  forge. Instead if we are interested into mass production than we have presses, rollers, and many other types of tools.The main disadvantage when using this tools to create the so called forged iron elements is that the finished product loses it’s originality. The same element is identticaly repeated hundreds of times both on my iron fence and my neighbour iron fence and if u look closely u will see the next neighbour has the same too, but when a blacksmith is forging every picket in the traditional method and only by hand than every element is unique .This will make my fence have character and every element in it will be different than the other.The differences will probably go unseen by an untrained eye but those small dettailes are making the job unique, and my fence won’t be the same as my neighbour’ s fence. I think that when u what to speak about the blacksmit you need to speak how he used to do his job hundred’s of years not how he is doing it in the past 20 years or so.  A press is just a press but a blacksmith is/was everything.

This is the reason why i chose to present this 3 movies so that everybody can see how a blacksmith is supouse to bend iron , how to make a leaf, how to weld it without having to grind afterward. I hope that i was able to help and i hope that you will present the blacksmith not the press in your writings. For me it;s obvious. A work made by a carver’s hand is perfect while the work made on a numerical controled mill… well that’s just to perfect.

I will try to present you what kind of work we do inside our shop.Forging in 2 people.Making a spike from a 12mm thick bar.This is what i mean when i refer to the hand forged iron inside our shop .

Forging alone splitting out the end of a flat bar

A few weeks ago we finished a project that involved some custom scroll work.
The iron had to go back into the fire about 2 times. They were commissioned by a customer that had his office located in a historically protected building and we had to follow the design of the scrols they were already installed on the other windows.
This is how they came out:

This was where we started from. Already installed in the building.

And this is the finished product

This is the process of forging and forming a scroll in the way that it was meant to be done. The iron is heated in the forge and then hammered into the desired shape. We have to heat the iron in order for it not to spring back while forming. You can now see what makes hand forged elements so special, and why they have a greater value than a machined one. It is very easy to recognize a machine work and a hand made item… no matter how good the blacksmith is, he can’t make 2 items to be exactly the same. There are always tiny variations because no hammer can fall exactly on the same spot every time, while a machine is just doing them, no sweat, no pain, no character and also no real value. Let’s say you look at a beautiful old gate made many years ago…What will you see ? You will see rivets instead of welds. You will see forged spikes instead of cheap cast ones. You will see character, and if you look close enough, you can probably still see some hammer marks left by the blacksmith that worked so hard making it. This is what gives value to a forged gate and not to some prefabricated elements welded toghether. I give you as an example this picture.. all you have to do is look at it and you will be able to see what I am talking about.

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This is the proces of making such a scroll